Category: Meditation

The Basics of Theism and Deism—What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You

A lot of people have had tremendous influence on how we think about things and approach life. Great thinkers have loudly voiced their thoughts and developed philosophies or worldviews . Some are optimistic, and some are so pessimistic you wonder how and why anyone would want to go on living!

Today we’re returning to our overview of some of the worldviews that have shaped men’s minds and hearts, and subsequently our children’s and the world’s. And even music. It doesn’t take much listening to some of the heavy metal lyrics to discover that many of these young men and women are devoid of hope and are profoundly depressed about and frustrated with life.

As we go through these views, think about whether your thinking and reasoning has been influenced in any way by them. We’ll cover two or three of them a week.

 

In the beginning—

It doesn’t take too much studying in history to realize that all ancient civilizations had some kind of worldview that involved worshiping a god or multitude of gods. Or nature. It’s only been fairly recent that people have dismissed the idea of a creator and universal ruler and gone out of their way to make sure god is removed from the public square, or education.

 

For our discussion, we’ll look at several God-focused worldviews: Theism and Deism.

 

Christian Theism—A Christian Theist believes that an omnipotent God exists and He has authored a Spirit-inspired and man written work called the Bible that is the final authority on life and living it. (Notice I didn’t say it is the final authority on how everything was and is created. It is not exhaustive in that regard.) This Bible contains precepts and laws upon which man should base society and living. Hence, God and the Bible have a real, significant and lasting impact on our lives.

Theism—A person who calls themselves a Theist might be referring to a Christian definition, or they might be a non-Christian theist who believes in a god or many gods. Because of this, it is extremely important to define your terms when you’re having a discussion with someone about “god.” The God you’re discussing and referring to might not at all be the god they worship or follow. They are not all the same.

A person who says they believe in and follow Jesus, but doesn’t believe in the immaculate conception of Him, or His resurrection, certainly doesn’t believe in the same Jesus as someone who believes those things.

 

There are some religions that identify as Christian, or Christ followers, but they believe that Jesus was really Satan’s brother, who was able to rise to the level He did because He was able to live a perfect life on Earth. They also don’t believe in the incarnation or that Jesus was the God Jehovah. They think all men can become gods, if they live a perfect enough life on Earth.

And there are others who believe that Jesus is the Archangel Michael, come down to Earth as God’s son to fight the battle. They also don’t believe in a true bodily resurrection, but see it (as the Gnostics did way before them) a spiritual one. They don’t believe Jesus is God incarnate, and they think only 180,000 select individuals will go to heaven. The rest of the followers will spend their eternity here on a redeemed Earth.

 

You can see that it’s critical to know who you’re talking about and define your terms.

 

Deism—Some of the founding fathers of the United States could be classified more as Deists than Theists. A Deist believes there is an authoritative creator, God, who has authored the Holy Bible, which is the source that should be used to guide men’s actions and governments.

A Deist knows that God was once omnipotent, before and during creation.

But they believe that once God finshed all of His creating, He decided to take a back seat in the affairs of men and, instead, distance Himself from the world and His creation. Hence, not be involved.

To them, the world can be looked at as a clock, once created by an intelligent being, but a clock that has been set on autopilot, more or less. Man is left to go it alone and figure out how the clock works and go on living.

They believe that you can know God only through reason and observation of nature, but not through a personal relationship, revelations, or miracles, which they would regard with skepticism.

Some do and some don’t believe in an afterlife. And among the believers of it, there is varying opinion.

If you’d like to do further reading on that subject, see this discussion posted on the Church of the Modern Deist website.

 

And you?

Which worldview would you ascribe to, or have you combined them in any way, leading you to have a melded or divided worldview?

 

NEXT WEEK: Romanticism and Naturalism (Can anyone say Tchaikovsky or the Disney movie, Pocahontas?)

Blessings,

 Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo by Dawid Zawila

On the Mountaintop—A Beautiful Marriage of Body and Spirit

I’m spending this weekend in the White Mountains of Arizona with my beloved, to celebrate 35 years of life together, and to refresh and invigorate my body, mind and spirit.

Being outside in the cool air and towering pine trees, (the largest grove of Ponderosa pine trees in the world), and inhaling that rich pine scent is like a hypodermic needle shot of anti-depressant and happiness booster for me.

And it’s truly a emotional, physical and spiritual experience. And science can back that up.

 

Spirit does affect the body, and vice versa—

When you experience something pleasant or enjoyable, brain chemicals are released and those chemicals cause a chain reaction throughout the body. Senses are heightened, happy hormones are released along with soothing brain chemicals. Happiness permeates your body systems. And all of that can heighten your joy.

When people say something is good for the spirit, like my mountain experience, they aren’t kidding. While scientists don’t completely understand why and how it happens, they can see the positive effects from it. The Greater Good Science Center located in Berkeley, California dedicates itself to uncovering why and how experiences enrich our lives and make us happier.

Joy-infusing experiences make us feel physically better, they improve health and can heal. They soothe us, refresh us, and give life meaning.

And we often feel a greater connection to God. The spirit that gives life meaning, that makes us so much more than just a living organism focused on maintenance, staying alive, and propagating ourselves, is stimulated by the experience, and the body reacts.

If that’s the case, how can we separate the two, when they’re so closely intertwined and interconnected? If a ravaged, pained body can affect the spirit so severely; and a ravaged, pained spirit can affect the body in a similar manner? If a healthy body and improve the spirit’s outlook; and an uplifted spirit can do the same for the physical component.

 

God has indeed made us very complex individuals. And is that any surprise?

 

The spirit of life we hold within us was breathed into us by Him. It is so much a part of Him that when it leaves our bodies at death it returns to Him. (Absent from the body but present with the Lord.) We are made in His image. Both the body and spirit give us life, in different and in complementary ways. And that’s one of life’s mysteries that makes human life so rich. One we should embrace.

 

The body and spirit interactions in which we can rejoice.

 

Are we more spirit than body?

When you’re standing on a mountaintop, inhaling the thinner, fresher air, feeling the cool breeze caress your face, smelling the exquisite scents peculiar only to juniper and pine-clad landscape, tell me which you feel more of at that moment. Body or spirit?

 

Or is it a beautiful, complex marriage of both?

 

 What do you think?

 

NEXT WEEK: More reasons why I think the body is just as important as the spirit.

Until then, enjoy your surroundings and the marvelous effects they have on both your body and spirit!

 

Blessings,

 Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

 Photo by Andrea A Owan

Meditating on Marriage

I’m doing a lot of meditating today. Actually, I’m spending most of the day reminiscing and meditating on marriage. Specifically my marriage, and the 35 years of wedded bliss my husband and I are celebrating today.

Has it always been wedded bliss? No. Sometimes it’s been downright painful, tough, agonizing. For both of us.

At some points I’m sure both of us have asked ourselves whether we married the “right” person. Or questioned whether we should have married at all.

Indeed, sharing life with someone else—when you need to compromise, when sometimes it’s 90% give on your end and the other person is in total receive mode, when family and financial stress, extreme illness, overwork and exhaustion bear down on you and you feel totally alone in your anguish—can be difficult. It can stretch you beyond what feels like your limit.

But it can also be the most rewarding experience. Sharing day-to-day life with someone else. Laughing with them, crying with them, planning, strategizing, exploring, hoping and laboring side-by-side with them. Shooting for the stars and reaching them together. Suffering with them. Growing with them. Compromising. Having little clones of both of you and raising them to be bigger or better clones. Being fruitful and multiplying, in all areas of life.

 

I have the opportunity to spend all day meditating on it—retracing when and how we started, where we’ve been, what we’ve done together, (I highly recommend doing that. You’d be surprised at just how much you’ve managed to accomplish together.), what we want to accomplish together, where I hope we are next month, next year, in five years and beyond. God willing.

And I’ll be thanking God a lot in the meditation. He’s brought us through some tragedies and difficulties we never could have weathered or survived without Him.

I’ll be meditating alone because my beloved has to work. Usually we’d make sure we both have the day off, and you think we’d make sure that happened again for such a BIG year, but we’re going to be heading out of town in a few days to breathe some cool mountain air, do some pilgrimage training, and making our marriage and family assessment, a yearly ritual for us. If we don’t know where we’ve come from or where we want to go, any path will get us somewhere.

But we aren’t satisfied with just “somewhere.” We want to have some idea where we’re going, or would like to go in our married life.

 

Get away from normal to clear your mind and reconnect—

Getting away from our homestead, into a different, relaxing environment helps us focus and spend uninterrupted time reflecting, analyzing, praying and planning. And we’ll be going on that special pilgrimage soon, so that’s another event we have to look forward to, to celebrate all these years together.

So I’m spending the day prepping for our getaway, asking myself where I’d like to see me, us, and, yes, my beloved, in another year. In the three major areas of life:

 

Physical

Emotional

Spiritual

 

Do some serious talking and encouraging—

And I want my beloved to tell me where he’d like to see me in that time too. Nothing encourages a husband or wife more than having the support of their spouse, and then hearing how proud they are of you. Generous atta girl and atta boy complements will be liberally verbalized.

 

Dig in and identify—

We’ll peel back layers in the onions of faith, family, and work. Identify which onions are getting old or stinky, or have rotted or dried out. Which onions need to be planted and nurtured, and which onions need to be tossed out and relegated to the past.

 

Celebrate!

We’ll end today with a special candlelight dinner concocted at home. Something we used to do in our young-and-broke days. Something we’ve come to realize in our old-and-secure days was more meaningful, memorable, and enjoyable than dropping a wad at a 5-star restaurant, although we’ve enjoyed those celebrations too. We’ll make dinner together and break out the wedding china and crystal and toast ourselves. And praise our Lord who has bound us securely together by His mighty hand and love.

Just thinking about all of that right now, as I write this, makes me happy. Planning the future together is thrilling, even when we don’t always see eye-to-eye; even when one of us is a little more enthusiastic, or pessimistic, about the future. After all these years we have learned to hope all things. Together.

 

And that’s what I’m celebrating most. Togetherness. Sustainability. Love. In its purest form.

Unconditional. From both sides of the marriage aisle.

 

Forgive me if this sounds terribly arrogant, but here’s to us!

 

NEXT WEEK: We’ll return to our brief overview of the different worldviews that have shaped our thinking and politics, often unintentionally. They’re worth knowing and analyzing, so you can better understand how people’s beliefs and views are shaped, and how your faith may have been tainted by some of the teachings.

 

Until then, thanks for letting me indulge myself in celebration. And if you’re looking for ways to recharge your relationship, I encourage you to do an onion-peelback together. But a word of caution: you must be willing to listen when the other person shares their heart, without assessment or snarky, too-quick comebacks. Listen in a way that encourages them to talk. Let them be vulnerable. That’s one way you can encourage them to hold your heart gently, and know you’re holding theirs.

 

Until next week!

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo by David Kokainis

In the Beginning—Are We More Spirit Than Body?

Body and spirit. That’s how the Lord made us. All we need to do is return to the first book of the Bible—Genesis—to learn that.

In Genesis 1:26-27 and 2:7, the New International Version version says,

 

“Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness,…

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

“Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

 

Clearly, at that point, once God breathed life into Adam and Eve, they were both spirit and body. Combined. Melded perfectly—body and spirit—into human beings. A man and a woman.

 

And God said it was good.

 

So the question is—

If God thought the spirit was the most important aspect or component, why did He bother to encase man’s spirit in flesh? Why go to the trouble?

There’s no indication from Scripture that Adam’s spirit existed in heaven prior to his creation or “birth,” and there’s no indication ours do either.

When Adam started life, the intention was for him to be perfect, unblemished, living forever in perfect communion with God. No pain, no suffering, no illness, no death.

God even walked with them in the garden in the cool of the afternoon. Why would he bother to do that if flesh, and physical communion, weren’t as important as the spiritual?

 

I may be way off in my thinking, but I get the impression that—from the beginning—the body was pretty important to God, and still is.

 

I’ll explain why I think that’s true NEXT WEEK.

 

But I’d like to hear your opinion. What do you think?

 

Until next week!

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo by Aaron Burden

Was Jesus a Philosopher?

Lots of people refer to Christianity as a philosophy. But is it, and was its namesake a philosopher?

It’s been a while since we’ve looked at the definition of philosophy, so let’s refresh our memories, so we can all be on the same page. Stay with me as we  slug through some of the terms and definitions. (And you’ll want to stay with the entire post to get to the great YouTube video I’ve included at the end!)

 

 Merriam-Webster online provides five definitions:

 

  1. a (1) : all learning exclusive of technical preceptsand practical arts

(2) : the sciences and liberal arts exclusive of medicine, law, and theology

  • a doctor of philosophy

(3) : the 4-year college course of a major seminary

b (1) archaic : physical science

(2) : ethics

c : a discipline comprising as its core logic, aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology

2a : pursuit of wisdom

b : a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means

c : an analysis of the grounds of and concepts expressing fundamental beliefs

3a : a system of philosophical concepts

b : a theory underlying or regarding a sphere of activity or thought

  • the philosophyof war

4a : the most basic beliefs, concepts, and attitudes of an individual or group

b : calmness of temper and judgment befitting a philosopher

 

Let’s begin at number 1.

Would Christianity be considered “all learning exclusive of technical precepts and practical arts”? Does Christianity notconcern itself with technical precepts, with precepts defined as a general rule to guide or regulate thought and behavior? I think it would depend upon how you define technical, but it certainly does provide general rules that guide our thought and behavior. Or should.

We can dismiss definition 1(2) because it specifically excludes theology, which Christianity most definitely is.

Since Christianity is sometimes offered as a 4-year course in a seminary, so we can say, “yes” to 1 a. (3).

Christianity certainly falls into the definition found in 1. c. “a discipline comprising as its core logic, aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology.” Epistemology being the study of uncovering what’s justified belief and what’s merely opinion.

And in a tangential way, it can be considered a pursuit of wisdom, because believers study Christ and the Bible in order to gain knowledge, wisdom and discernment. So let’s give a thumbs up to 2a.

 

A breakdown—

When we arrive at definition 2 b. though, I think we see a crack. Christianity is not speculative. At least, fundamental Christians don’t believe it to be. More liberal thinkers might agree with this definition, though. Many of them consider much of Scripture to be speculative, hinging on man’s definition throughout the centuries and open to modern interpretations. Kind of like a “living” constitution, where people believe it means what it should mean for a particular time and generation. Fluid.

I don’t see Christianity as fluid, although I will say that our understanding of some of God’s words may be full of holes and based on ignorance or bias.

Christianity can also be an analysis of the grounds of and concepts expressing fundamental beliefs that we see in definition 2 c.

But it’s not a system, and I would argue vehemently that it’s not a theory. A theory is a supposition, an idea, or principles that mandate a particular action. You could say that Christianity and The Bible present principles to guide us, but that’s not what the foundation of Christianity, or God-focused belief is. You can look to many other religions for that type of structure or belief.

And then we arrive at the definition we can’t deny fits into the Christianity construct— 4a.

 

“The most basic beliefs, concepts, and attitudes of an individual or group.”

 

If someone narrowed down a Christian’s beliefs, concepts, and attitudes, or did that with the church as a whole, they should be able to unearth the core principles a believer attests to. The non-negotiables that categorize you as a follower of Christ. Or The Way, as the first believers originally called it.

 

I only wish more Christians could be referred to as philosophers, with corresponding calm temperaments and judgment as the final definition states.

 

Conclusions—What about Jesus?

So, if we come to the conclusion that in some ways Christianity can be defined as and studied as a philosophy, can we make the statement that Jesus was a philosopher?

 

If he was a philosopher, was Jesus a different kind of philosopher?

Take a moment to listen to what Christian speaker, George Haraksin—from Reasons to Believe—has to say about it in this YouTube video. It’s less than four minutes and may challenge and broaden your thinking.

 

What do you think? And does it matter?

 

NEXT WEEK: I’ll take a break to celebrate and discuss a special occasion in my life, from a meditation perspective. (This is an update and change from the original published post.)

 

Until then,

Keep growing and challenging yourself in your faith and understanding of God’s truth!

Blessings,

 Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo by Simeon Jacobsen